LET THE FEASTING CONTINUE

MAN SADDENED

He was caught fighting for a regime that still fields an army that two weeks ago shot one of our soldiers. He was caught serving with a terrorist group behind attacks in which more than 100 of our civilians have died.

HE WAS PAID BY IT BEFORE HE WAS AGAINST IT

Fifty-thousand dollars is a high price to pay even for prestigious nothing. It’s 10,000 more than the median household income of the United States, never mind all those little folks the Prof feels so badly for. The man who sneers at the malign influence of Enron money on Republican politicians - or, as he calls them “the people Enron put in the White House”- has received more money from Enron than any member of the House of Representatives. If he were in the Senate, where 71 of 100 members have been endowed with Enron moolah, he would rank in that crowded field as the third biggest beneficiary of the company’s generosity.

ROLLING HUNGER REVUE

Penn, Sarandon and Nelson, meanwhile, will participate in a “rolling fast” along with actor Danny Glover, author Alice Walker and nearly 3,000 activists nationwide. The concept involves each participant to refuse food for 24 hours on designated days and then pass the fast over to the next individual.

Celebrities not eating for 24 hours? Who has ever heard of such a thing? St. Mother has more on the Great Fasting over at—ahem—Michael Moore’s site:

We are starting an historic and very meaningful action. We were honored by being joined by legendary fasters Dick Gregory and Diane Wilson ...

Imagine being known for your legendary ability to not each much food. And these people make fun of Ann Coulter! In fact, Gregory has earned some useful coin from fasting and fasting-related products: “In 1984 he founded Health Enterprises, Inc., a company that distributed weight loss products. In 1987 Gregory introduced the Slim-Safe Bahamian Diet, a powdered diet mix, which was immensely profitable.” Emphasis on the was.

As for Diane Wilson’s legendary fasting status, here’s how she fasted following her latest release from prison: “We had a wonderful breakfast celebration with homemade biscuits, eggs, mashed potatoes and mimosas (champagne & orange juice)!” More now from Slim Cindy, soon to be camped out on the Slenderosa near the old Bush ranch:

The very definition of freedom is that it is free. Freedom is a birthright of every American and we have the Bill of Rights to prove it. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say anywhere that our young people have to fight insane wars for greedy swine to earn anyone any kind of freedoms. If freedom wasn’t free it would be called “expensivedom.”

And if Sheehan wasn’t a freak she’d be an ... expensiveak.

Yes, that is why I am embarking on this fast. It is not because our nation—with the complacent, if not intellectual, approval of most of our citizens—is waging a war crime of mammoth proportions in Iraq. It’s not because our soldiers are committing atrocities on an innocent population who never asked for our lethal interference.

There’s that “respect for the troops” we’re always hearing about.

I am not fasting because our soldiers should not be dying or killing for Exxon and Halliburton. I am not sitting here with mild hunger pangs because our leadership condones and orders others to commit cruelties on my fellow human beings in such brutal places as Guantanamo. I am not fasting because the wrongfully, illegally, and immorally detained ... [etc etc]

Maybe people have to ascribe nefarious motivations to our actions because they can’t conceive of leaving their comfort zones for another member of humanity.

Leaving their comfort zones for other members of humanity? That would be soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Ascribing nefarious motivations to their actions? Sheehan and her idiot band of food refuseniks.

DEATH BEFORE DOLE

Australia’s Muslim spiritual leader, Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali, has lost his $40,000 cleric’s allowance and been told to apply for the dole ...

The high-profile sheik has been instructed to “contact your local Centrelink office” by the nation’s peak Muslim body, the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, which is locked in a legal dispute over its leadership and has been denied access to its bank accounts.

Sheik al-Hilali reacts in his usual calm manner:

“I would prefer to die 100 times over than to stand in line seeking welfare payments from Centrelink,” he says ...

“Does your dignity or Islamic manners permit you to direct such an insult to a spiritual leader who had spent his life in the service of the faith?

“You are very much mistaken if you believe that you can insult me, my dignity will not accept for me to be held hostage to the mercy of AFIC or anyone else for that matter.”

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

DANCE RECORDED

Before the three major forms of modern dance—lap, table, and pole—came into being, Australia experimented with a multitude of wildly diverse dancing styles. Please enjoy this historical record of our grand dancing past.

Let us reflect on the statement, often (if erroneously) attributed to Jefferson, that captures the true essence of Independence Day: “Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.” This is a powerful sentiment that commands our eternal assent ...

So dissent is all totally cool unless we dissent from the view that dissent is the highest form of patriotism—about which we must not dissent, and instead offer assent for the rest of our lives. Say, Professor ... wouldn’t dissent over this make us, I don’t know, double super dooper über patriots? And thereby qualified to receive subsidised 1963 Corvettes under the double super dooper über Patriot Act?

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

AN ALTERNATIVE TO INDIVIDUALITY

I had just returned from a day in Berlin punctuated by the spectacle of watching messrs Marx and Engels (the statue versions of course) descent into a ‘left tourist’ site at the so-called Marx Engels Forum ...

Downtrodden I was then pleasantly suprised to recieve news of this Left Writes endeavour. I really hope this venture is a successfull one - which forms part of the ongoing oppositional critique and perhaps more importantly the mapping out of a new Left politics ...

Maybe I am foolish optimist but I think this political moment holds the promise not of conservative long term hegemony but of the seeds for a counter movement. There is a ‘far away train passing us by’ - a popular yet dormant movement, who, though not inclined to the old slogans and rhetoric of the Left that is past, are desperate for an alternative to the conservative politics of materialism and individuality. As much as some on this site might despise them, there is something in the writings of people such as Mark Latham and more recently that of Clive Hamilton who ...

To hell with this. I should have bolded the entire post. Of course, one of Nick’s research interests is language.

A CIRCLE NAMED GLOBAL WARMING

While Gore’s film makes its mark on the general population, and while Congress and scientists debate what to do about man’s effect on his environment, a much smaller, but more startling, and, potentially, much more important, media event is educating people about the bigger story in the background.

Www.PopularPhilosophy showcases the big, bigger, and biggest story, or idea, according to Absolute Intelligence author, Ilexa Yardley. This is the story of the circle. According to Yardley, the circle is what we’ve otherwise named ‘god,’ ‘gravity,’ and ‘global warming.’

Al Gore must address this controversial matter of the circle. Otherwise his credibility will be shot to bits.